1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system for monitoring objects and the correlation between the objects on a map showing the correlation between objects.
2. Description of the Related Art
For example, in a system for monitoring a host, router, hub, etc. provided in a network, an object to be watched or monitored can be a node such as a host, a router, a hub, etc. In this case, when the correlation between a node (root) to be monitored and another node subordinate to the node is monitored, it is required that the correlation can be correctly obtained and information can be easily referred to. In a network monitor system, the information about a host to be monitored and the connection to another host must be easily referred to. To represent the connection between nodes, it is effective to graphically represent the correlation between nodes on a map. When a map is drawn, an appropriate method of drawing pictures is required to easily refer to necessary information in monitoring nodes.
Conventionally, a tree-structure map drawing method is used to represent the correlation between a root and subordinate nodes.
FIG. 1 shows a method of drawing a conventional tree-structure map.
In this method, the icon of the root is drawn as the top, and the icons of the subordinate nodes assigned the same hierarchical level of hierarchical position are arranged in the same line. Adjacent icons are connected via lines. Thus, the correlation between the root and the subordinate nodes can be represented by multiple hierarchical levels of a tree structure. In the following descriptions, a hierarchical level having a larger ordinal number is a higher hierarchical level, and the hierarchical level having a smaller ordinal number is a lower hierarchical level. Therefore, in FIG. 1, the first hierarchical level, or the root, is the lowest hierarchical level. The lower positions in FIG. 1 refer to higher hierarchical levels.
In the conventional method, the node indicating a root is assigned the top position. The number of nodes increases downward. Since the network configuration is represented based on the root, the representation cannot be flexibly changed. Furthermore, since the number of nodes displayed at the same hierarchical level increases at a higher hierarchical level, the number of displayed icons (corresponding to nodes) increases at a higher hierarchical level, thereby causing the problem that each icon cannot be easily recognized on the display screen.
The node of a root is the center of a network such as a host, etc. In the conventional tree structure, the displayed configuration of the network does not represent an actual network.
In the conventional method of drawing a tree-structure map, the map contains the icon indicating the root as the top regardless of the physical configuration of a target to be actually monitored. Therefore, when the user is going to monitor the target using the map, it is difficult to know the entire configuration of the target to be monitored or to intuitively monitor a specific target, thereby failing to efficiently monitor a target.